Community Services
Children's Education
The Gurdwara operates one of the largest children's Sikh education programs in the United States. The popularity of this program led to the creation of a separate entity known as Guru Nanak Khalsa School. All financial activities related to this program are shown as Program B on the Financial Statements. Please click here or Khalsa School Tab to see details related to school activities.
Community Kitchen – Langar
The Sikh Gurdwara San Jose operates one of the largest Sikh community kitchen programs in the United States. Langar (community meal) is prepared for about 1,000 people on weekdays and over 7,500 people on weekends. On Diwali (Festival of Lights) and New Year’s Eve / Day, Langar is prepared for over 15,000 people. Please see Community Kitchen in Transparency section for details.
Scholarships
In 2013, Gurdwara Committee announced a comprehensive set of scholarships for Sikh students pursuing college/University degree for Teaching Credentials, Broadcasting Journalism and 4-year college degree. To date 23 scholarships have been given. Due to privacy laws names and amount given cannot be disclosed on the website. Please click here to see details of the program.
Medical Clinic (Guru Nanak Medical Clinic)
The Medical clinic was started in November 2014 and its mission is to provide healthcare consulting services to the uninsured but medical services will not be denied to anyone. All clinic physicians, nurses and medical students are volunteers. To date the clinic has served over 2000 patients. Due to privacy laws names and services provided cannot be disclosed on the website. Please click here to see details regarding clinic.
COVID-19
In early 2020, the World Health Organization declared the SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19) virus a pandemic due to its rapid spread across the globe.
On March 16th, 2020, to help slow the spread of COVID-19, the County of Santa Clara closed all non-essential services to the public on March 16, 2020. The Sikh Gurdwara San Jose management took aggressive action to protect the health of devotees, employees and volunteers and shut down all services on March 16, 2020. The Gurdwara income plummeted and laid off several employees and terminated services of many independent contractors during this time. During the remainder of 2020 and 2021, the management took the following actions to continue religious services for devotees, help laid off employees and help other communities in the Bay Area and in India:
Online programs broadcast
The Gurdwara aggressively started to broadcast its programs online for audio and video streaming for those who wish to watch or listen while not at the Gurdwara. These online programs are still provided to the devotees. Instructions for using either option are available on the Gurdwara website at the links below:
WhatsApp COVID-19 group
Realizing the seriousness of situation, sevadars from the Gurdwara, Guru Nanak Khalsa School and others created a WhatsApp COVID-19 group. The intent of this group was to raise funds, help laid off Gurdwara employees, independent contractors, other laid off individuals not connected to Gurdwara and their families financially. With dedicated support from the COVID-19 group many people not connected with Sikhism or Gurdwara were able to sign up and receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits. Volunteers helped beneficiaries thru complete registration process with California EDD. These volunteers continued to work with EDD till all claim funds were stopped in 2021.
Loans to laid off employees
The management committee offered unsecured loans to all laid off employees and independent contractors.
Overseas COVID19 Support
In April 2021, a significant wave of COVID-19 swept through India, overwhelming the healthcare system. In response to this, the Gurdwara Committee contacted Delhi's Pandemic Control Task Force and offered to send oxygen concentrators and financial assistance. Sikh Gurdwara volunteers were able to source 100 oxygen concentrators from China, pay for them, and have them delivered to the Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee to distribute them where needed.